


what you won't say out loud

by seabright



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-24
Updated: 2016-05-24
Packaged: 2018-06-10 09:41:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6951232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seabright/pseuds/seabright
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All in the name of fiscal responsibility.</p>
            </blockquote>





	what you won't say out loud

**Author's Note:**

> Shoutout to medical school for turning me into the type of person who writes Youtube RPF!! Shoutout to Heemy for consistently reminding me that this is not the most embarrassing thing I have ever written and posted, Gamble for selectively faving all of the worst tweets I made about this, and most importantly Di, for being the only person who understood and bore the brunt of my yelling. ❤
> 
> DISCLAIMER: None of the events in this fic are real. This is a work of complete fiction. I would appreciate it if you did not share this with anyone who is actually named in the fic.

Early November, Martyn asks him over dinner, "Have you ever thought about actually buying your own flat?"

So far they've only ordered drinks. Phil takes a swallow of his cider. "Why?" he asks, "Have you?"

Martyn gestures between the two of them. "Who of the two of us is an actual multi-millionaire again?"

It's not that he hasn't thought about it before. He could probably count on two hands the number of times he'd been catching up with an old friend from uni only to have the conversation veer in the direction of how expensive it was to rent in London and could you believe how much they were paying for a single room flat? And the ultimate self-deprecating conclusion: rent was just throwing away money when you could be paying a mortgage. As if anyone could even afford the initial down payment.

The smiling waitress approaches with notepad in hand. Phil hasn't even looked at the menu.

"Are you ready to order?" she asks. Both she and Martyn are looking at him.

"I need a moment," he says.

_____

Dan has the bulk of his youtube money split across three different portfolios--most of it in a long term portfolio of bonds and indices, some of it in a separate portfolio managed by a financial advisor who Phil might have met all of once, and maybe ten thousand pounds in video game stock. It'd been a while since Phil had last heard Dan grumbling to himself about Zynga prices falling so he figures that the multiple thousands Dan's put into Electronic Arts must be paying off.

Phil has a savings account that pays half a percent of interest annually. He'd been goaded into putting money away into an investment account by Dan of all people, but hasn't added more money since the day he'd been handed a Welcome To Your New Account folder at HSBC with a billion pages in 6 point Arial and looked across at Dan helplessly. It's not that he doesn't understand basic economics or enjoys losing money to the ever present, greedy jaws of inflation--he just keeps forgetting that there's money somewhere, waiting for him to do something with it.

Maybe he's been keeping everything liquified for a failsafe--just in case something big happened and they needed cash immediately for whatever reason. Preparing for the unexpected. He's good enough at everyday finances anyway--he's the one who prods Dan into coughing up his half of the bill and paying well before the bill's due. For all of his long term planning, Dan's always surprised at his credit card bills, the hundreds absently dropped on spur-of-the-moment anime merchandise. They've already got two full boxes of spare figurines in the office and no matter how many times Dan says he'll rotate the toys they have in the lounge, they've had the same setup since 2013, kept tidy only thanks to the effort of Carla, their once-a-week cleaner who removes dust from their shelves on a monthly basis.

Maybe, deep down somewhere in his subconscious, he'd been planning for this.

_____

"You seem distracted," Dan says from the corner of Phil's screen, leaning in towards the camera to scratch at his own shoulder. He's not looking at Phil's Skype box on his own laptop screen though, and his face isn't lit up enough to be looking at google documents where they've been writing the entirety of TABINOF. Dan's already written something in response to the last thing Phil had written and now the cursor blinks after _P:_ accusingly.

Phil minimises the window he'd been using to browse two bedroom flats on Zoopla and tries not to look guilty. But Dan glances at him at the bottom left of his screen and immediately squints at his face. "What's going on over there? Isn't it a little early in the day for porn?"

"Nothing," Phil says, and types something into the shared document.

"Well that's not at all suspicious," Dan says, "Don't worry, I'm not here to judge."

Phil just keeps typing until he's finished with his own line. Usually they don't take so long to write but neither of them have been in the writing mood today.

"Want to go to the lounge?" Dan asks. The sudden brightness on his face tells Phil that he's just reverted back to the window with their book.

"You'll just distract me," Phil says--as if he hadn't just been distracting himself, "I don't need your help falling down the Tumblr rabbithole."

In response, Dan just sends a link to something on Tumblr.

"I'm not gonna click that," Phil says.

"Click it," Dan insists, "It's hilarious."

Phil hesitates and sighs before clicking the link. Rick Astley starts playing and Dan snorts with a laugh at the same time.

"I've got a new idea for a section in this book," Phil says, closing the window. "An entire four, high def, glossy pages dedicated to how annoying Dan Howell is."

Dan just sends him an emoji in response: kissy winky face.

_____

Midway through the month, Phil gets a last minute wedding invitation for Leah, a family friend he's known for far too many years. His mum calls to see if he's going to attend, and then throws in that they haven't seem him in a while and isn't it a shame he won't be home for Christmas?--which means that he buys last minute tickets to Manchester the morning after they do the December Internet Takeover. The train has terrible wifi and he gives up on trying to Skype Dan after the second laggy try. Then they get almost nothing written for the actual book itself as they spend the bulk of the three hour train ride discussing their annual BBC performance review coming up in January. The conversation peters out in a string of emojis and Phil ends up staring blearily at the blank document where he's supposed to be writing about Simon the Shrimp.

The train takes forever to leave Crewe. He's nearly half an hour late by the time he reaches Manchester Piccadilly. He changes into his formal wear in the tiny train water closet--cramped enough for a normal person, much less someone comprised of ninety percent too-long limbs and ten percent panic. He prays he doesn't fall into the toilet.

"Oh, love," his mum says when she sees him, reaching up to retie the bow tie he'd only made a halfhearted attempt at.

"I look like a mess," Phil says, bending down somewhat so that she has easier access. He'd sprayed a bit more cologne to get rid of the stale travel smell, but there's nothing to be done about the exhausted expression on his face. "I hope Leah doesn't mind."

"I'm sure Leah just appreciates you coming," his mum says, smoothing her hands over his lapels before crushing them anyway in a hug. Phil kisses her cheek.

"No Dan?" she asks after pulling away.

"Oh! I thought I'd--" Phil starts, then remembers that he'd only sent the train itinerary, no details on who to expect. They'd been busy with the book and endless hours of editing for the new gaming channel. "He's got a couple of meetings this week. We turned in another twenty pages."

"You don't have to be there?" she asks.

"No," Phil says, climbing into the car. "I trust him."

_____

The wedding itself is a tiny affair, held in a tiny church out past Bolton. They would have been late except for the fact that the bride herself is late. He sits next to his parents and Martyn who has come separately with Cornelia. Across the aisle, he recognises a few of his old primary school mates.

Phil doesn't know the groom. He hasn't seen Leah in over two years and was kind of surprised to be invited at all. He glances over at his own family, briefly noting the way that Cornelia squeezes Martyn's hand on his lap before the music starts and someone near the front stands up. The rest of the small audience rises.

Leah is both happier and far more pregnant than Phil remembers her being. She doesn't look at any of them as she enters, beaming, eyes fixed on the groom at the far end of the aisle.

Phil swallows and has to look at the ground for a bit. He can't remember why he'd let himself be guilted into coming.

_____

The first person at the reception to ask him at the reception is his cousin Sophia who'd been maid of honor for Leah. They're both in line for the open bar when she opens the conversation with, "So where's Dan?"

"London," Phil says, aiming for diplomatic, "He's been incredibly busy these last few weeks. He's sorry he couldn't make it." Dan had, in fact, only grunted when Phil mentioned the wedding to him. Phil had watched him continuously loop the same two second footage being edited for a full eight repeats before shrugging and going to the kitchen to make more coffee. Only three hours later did Dan poke his head in Phil's room to say he had scheduled too many meetings the first week of December. Phil didn't know whether to feel disappointed or relieved.

"Think it'll be you next?" Sophia asks, over her shoulder in an absent minded sort of way.

"Oh no," Phil says, the words springing reflexively from his mouth, "We're not like that."

The next person to ask is Joseph, a man Phil only remembers as an eight year old boy who'd eaten an earthworm on a dare once. Phil's wondering how early he can convince his family to leave the reception and not be rude when Joseph comes up beside him and asks, "So where's your--?"

Phil turns to look at him. "You know, your--?" Joseph asks, before gesturing at his forehead, "The other one with the haircut."

"Dan," Phil says.

"Yes!" Joseph says, "I knew it started with a D."

"He couldn't make it," Phil says, and then, "I'm sorry, if you'll excuse me."

His coat is at the back of the room, under his parents' scarves. He quietly slips outside before putting his gloves on, breath coming in a mist. The afternoon sky is heavy with clouds, thin snowflakes melting on contact with his coat sleeves.

He pulls out his phone. Dan's texted a few times about stuff around the flat he can't find. Louise wants photos of the wedding.

Phil wants to talk to someone about the entire afternoon. Normally he'd already be calling Dan but--

This is the one thing he can't talk to Dan about.

_____

They _had_ been like that. Before Dan had spent months agonizing over how to brand himself separately from Phil. Before the video got unlocked and the entire world saw something meant for Dan only. Before Dan had gone pale when Phil told him and immediately suggested they deny everything, that it was just a prank, that it wasn't real. Before the first three hour real conversation they had ever had about their relationship, about what it might mean to come clean to their viewers--the way that Phil knew Dan was silently weighing the marketability of being a single, attractive Youtube star against a relationship that was barely a year old. He knew Dan better than anyone else in the world, and at that moment, he realised maybe he didn't know Dan very well at all.

They didn't break up immediately. It happened slowly: sleeping apart, Dan spending all of his time in his room, Phil taking long walks by himself at a time when he wasn't nearly as recognizable. Long periods of silence over gchat, texts only about groceries. Phil left the room sometimes if Dan came in, because it was hard to look at Dan and not hurt.

Eventually, sometime in mid-November, they'd been cooking dinner together, Dan hunched over the cutting board and Phil peeling potatoes into the sink. It'd taken him days to build up the courage but Phil finally asked, "We're not together any more, are we?"

Dan froze and the sound of the knife hitting the wooden board stopped. It took a long time for him to answer, but he finally said, "Is that okay?"

 _No,_ Phil wanted to say. But then Dan turned to look at him and he'd looked so lost. "You're my best friend," he said, "I don't want that to change."

 _No,_ Phil wanted to say, but what came out of his mouth was, "Yeah, Dan."

_____

Phil has played that conversation in his head again and again a million times. Maybe if he'd asked that first question in a different way-- _are we still together?_ \--instead of assuming the worst, instead of giving Dan a way out. If he'd fought against the resignation that had been building up in his heart, if he had hardened himself against the expression on Dan's face, hunched shoulders, small voice. What if he'd reached out? What if they had a real conversation about Dan's insecurities?

But he was twenty-four without any idea of how to navigate a fight like this; Dan was nineteen and unwilling to compromise. He'd been so scared of losing Dan twofold that he'd settled for half-measures, letting Dan's increasingly anxious voice talk them back into being friends--as if they had ever been _just friends_ before.

Now--

Now he's just not sure what they are any more.

_____

By the time his parents call, he's already stepped in two puddles and likely ruined the expensive dress shoes he'd borrowed from Dan since he couldn't find his own in time for the morning train. There's mud on the hem of his trousers which means he'll have to add dry cleaning to the list of never ending things he'll have to do when he gets back to London.

"I'm almost back at the church," he tells his mum over the phone, shoving his other hand more deeply into his pocket. The snow is coming down harder now, the pinpricks of ice coalescing into full fluffy flakes that settle into Phil's hair and along his shoulders.

He sees the headlights of his dad's car cut through the falling snow as he turns out of the church carpark, tires crunching against cold gravel. It slows as it nears and Phil climbs into the back.

"Are you doing alright?" his mum asks, craning her neck to look back at him as his dad starts driving again.

"Yeah, don't worry," Phil says, aiming for cheery, "I've been in London so long, I just missed the country."

"Ought to visit home more," his mum says, smiling at him. Phil just smiles back.

_____

_is your internet good enough for skype?_ Dan asks via gchat when Phil opens his laptop for the first time after dinner. He's got another two days in Manchester before he has to head back for a meeting with their touring management to talk about the feasibility of a youtube show in the US.

Cornelia comes to sit next to him, setting a glass of his mum's favourite wine on the coffee table in front of him. "Thanks," he says, and types _still with fam, skype u in an hour?_ back to Dan.

"Are you thinking about moving?" Cornelia asks, looking at his computer screen and taking a sip of her own glass of wine. Phil had started browsing Zoopla again, a blown up map of available two bedroom flats in Queen's Park on his browser.

"I thought maybe I'd make an investment," Phil says, swiping the map towards Regent's Park. Nearly all the markers disappear.

"I thought you were happy where you were," Cornelia says, looking at him over her glass.

He and Cornelia don't really know each other well. She's been dating his brother for what seems like ages and Phil knows that Martyn has some vague plans to propose to her very soon. But she and Phil have never really had any real conversation outside of small talk while waiting for Martyn in restaurants and train stations.

"Can I tell you a secret?" Phil asks impulsively, "You can't tell anyone."

"I--" she looks surprised. "Sure."

"I'm thinking about moving out," Phil says, and adds for clarification, "Just me."

She lowers her wineglass and leans towards him, frowning. "Is everything going okay with you?"

"It's going more than fine," Phil says, because it's true. Between everything they're doing together now, it feels like Phil can't move more than two steps without having to consult Dan--but the weirdest thing is that he doesn't even _mind_. And perhaps this is the part that scares Phil. "I was just thinking, maybe it's time for a change."

She doesn't say anything for a long moment. This must be why he had told her in the first place: too much of a stranger to look at him pitying, not close enough to pry. Eventually she says, "One of my friends is a realtor. She used to be a full time sound technician but I guess there's more money in real estate. Want me to give you her number?"

Phil looks down at his laptop screen where his Gmail tab flashes with new messages from Dan. It feels like he's making some sort of Official Decision, capitalised and all--no longer just a formless feeling in the too-late hours of night.

He picks up the wine that Cornelia has brought him. "Sure," he says.

_____

His mum doesn't mean to do it. He knows that it's only because he's been so busy the last few months that he hasn't been able to keep up with their schedule of checking in every other day. He can't do what Dan does--talk on the phone while walking to and from the train station--because he needs all his concentration to figure out where he's going. So when his mum says, "Sophia's thinking about a summer wedding, don't you think that would be lovely?" while arranging the flowers that Phil had picked up from the shop after lunch to apologise for his train arriving so late, Phil can only think _wait, what?_

"I didn't know Sophia was engaged," he says, sweeping the stems that his mum had cut off into a bag for composting later.

"She got engaged a month ago," his mum says, "I could have sworn I told you." She pulls out some of the flowers and lays them on the counter. Phil picks one of them up and starts to fiddle with it. "Nice RAF boy," she continues, "Very sweet. Not very good looking though, hope the baby takes after Sophia."

A petal comes loose in Phil's hands. He sets the flower down and starts to worry at the petal with his fingers. Sophia's five years younger. He'll be the last unmarried Lester of their extended family. Some days, it feels like he's given up looking already.

"Budge over," his mum says, reaching for the drawer behind his hip, "Help me get started with the roast."

_____

"Why are you asking me this?" Martyn asks when they're crunching through the frozen field behind their house, squinting up at the stars through the wispy night clouds. Martyn's sneaking a smoke, something that their mum would be livid about if she found out. He'd quit years ago but started again in July when things were getting stressful with the startup.

"You didn't meet Cornelia until you were in your thirties," Phil says. The snow has soaked through the canvas of his shoes and he can feel it seeping into his socks.

"Is this for a skit?" Martyn asks.

The frustration coils in Phil's chest. He's got half a mind to shout that not everything is for a video, that it's for _him, alright?_ but he and Martyn have never been close in that way. He's only told his mum about breaking up with Dan, cried on the phone with the bath turned on so that Dan wouldn't hear. Martyn had never asked directly, he'd assumed like the rest of them. Phil can't blame him.

"It's hard," Martyn says, "I mean, your metabolism goes to shit and you still want to look nice so you can't have a pint as often as you'd like. You actually have to take up running or lifting or--" He waves his hand, the end of his cigarette tracing a glowing arc against the darkness. "And then when you give up on dignity entirely and start using online dating--" He pauses and glances at Phil with a grin. "No offence. Anyway, when you meet the girl, you have to impress her but all you've got is a dead end job at the NHS."

"You've got loads of cool stories," Phil says, shoving his hands in deeper into his coat pockets.

"Cool stories only get you so far," Martyn says, and takes another drag of his cigarette. "Women that age are mostly looking for stability at that point. Thank god I met Cornelia."

They walk in silence. A dog barks lowly somewhere ahead of them--probably the Great Dane that the Ellenbergs own. The roof of their house comes into view.

"What's your video going to be about?" Martyn asks, stubbing his cigarette out on the back of his shoe.

Phil looks at the moonlit landscape, the snow covered roofs and warmly lit windows. "I don't know yet," he says.

_____

"They turned it into a study?" Dan demands over Skype. Phil adjusts the volume on his laptop so that Dan's not yelling into his earbuds.

"They might have told me and I just forgot. My mum's taking up watercolor I guess," Phil says, keeping his voice down and reaching across the desk to turn on the desk lamp so that he's not sitting in the semi dark with only the laptop glare on his face, "It looks nice."

"How can you take this so calmly?"

"Didn't your parents turn your room into a studio the moment you moved out?"

"Yeah but," Dan shrugs, leaning forward, "That's my family. I thought your mum was going to build a shrine to her favourite son in your room forever."

"My mum loves us both equally," Phil says, which isn't quite true, "Except apparently she loves watercolor more."

"Wise woman," Dan says, "Show me around."

Phil pivots the laptop around the room. There's only two lights--a lamp near the door and the one on the desk but there's enough light to see the easel in the corner near the window, the closet rearranged with art supplies, the bookshelves that must have been recently bought. Phil recognises some of the books as ones he'd seen piled up in boxes in the attic, old aromatherapy texts and self help books scattered in among the woodworking manuals.

"Oh wow," Dan says, "Everything's gone."

Phil turns the laptop back towards himself. He can't interpret the tone of Dan's voice--too shocked to be anything other than genuine.

He wonders if they're both thinking of the same thing: high off their first kiss, Phil pressing Dan into the too-small frame of his old bed, drawing circles into the soft skin over Dan's ribs, listening to the radiator creak. They'd filmed their first collab here, the initiation of a yearly tradition. He'd held Dan here, pressed his face into Dan's hair and felt like the luckiest person on earth.

Dan doesn't say anything. He's looking off to the side, over the laptop at something else, worrying the inside of his lower lip between his teeth. Phil watches him, wondering if he should say something. If Dan will say something. Or if they'd just sidestep the conversation altogether.

"I think we should upload the Morpho vid tomorrow," Dan says, looking back at the laptop, "It's been pretty long since we uploaded a joint gaming vid."

Phil breathes out quietly. "Yeah," he says, "Sure."

_____

_Polar bears on lost,_ Dan had texted at four AM with absolutely no context. Phil squints at it at half past seven in the morning. He can hear the scrape of shovel against the driveway and Cornelia's laughter muffled through the cracked door that someone had neglected to shut all the way. His dad hums as he makes coffee in the kitchen. Phil pulls the duvet tighter around himself on the couch and checks his emails.

 _watch._ Dan had sent in an email around 2:30AM, without a subject or any indication of what. Phil logs into their gaming channel from his phone for the latest private video and watches himself and Dan mess around on Morpho with their own faces. It's a pretty smooth cut, impressive considering the turnaround time, and probably exactly what Phil would have done with the footage. 

He watches it again, just to hear Dan laugh so hard he has to duck out of frame. He rewinds and watches it two more times. They'd talked for two hours straight last night, about the revisions that the editors had suggested for some of the image-based pages and about the volleyball anime that Dan had just started watching--but Phil can't get the first five minutes out of his mind. What if he had pushed the moment? What if he had voiced what they were both thinking out loud?

Dan might have shut down, like he'd done a year ago when Phil had one too many cocktails and tried to say something. He was so frustratingly good at doing that--at shutting down and pretending not to understand what was wrong. Phil hated it, hated that it could be used against him.

On his phone, Dan laughs again, grinning at the camera and then at on-screen Phil. Phil turns his phone off. Despite himself, he was always lonely when he wasn't with Dan--no one to turn around and exchange a look with, no one to press his shoulder against when he wanted human contact, no one to laugh with when something stupid happened. The frustration didn't change how he felt.

The train leaves for London after lunch--he'll be home in time to order pizza for dinner.

_____

Phil's on the outskirts of London when Dan texts, _In Paddington. Had a meeting nearby._

 _Don't let the fangirls catch you,_ Phil texts back.

 _i am a motherfucking ninja,_ Dan responds.

True to his word, Phil can see Dan over the heads of the milling crowd, no matter how badly Dan slouched. He's pulled his hood over his head, earbuds in and phone out as he stands near Costa, avoiding eye contact. But Phil draws near and Dan looks up to catch his eye. A smile breaks across his face and Phil can't help but grin back.

_____

Kim is the American consultant their touring management company brought over from Arizona--probably one of those square states in the middle of the continent? She's dark haired, gorgeously tanned, and constantly smiling as she kept touching Dan's arm to look at the sketches he's made of their still-unbuilt set.. It's not that she spent the meeting ignoring Phil--it's just that she'd been very obviously flirting with Dan the whole time.

"Looks like you've got an admirer," Phil says on the elevator down, after they've left the conference room. Dan looks at him in the reflection of the elevator door.

"Have I," Dan replies in a deadpan, before shifting his eyes to a corner of the ceiling. His bare fingers curl around the edges of his coat sleeves. For someone who was so attached to his mittens, Dan forgot them in the house more often than not. The elevator doors open.

"Dan," Phil says before Dan can push open the lobby doors to emerge into what looks like a bit of a blizzard outside. He holds out his gloves.

Dan hesitates before taking them. "Thanks," he says, and the smile on his face is worth walking the half mile to the underground station with Phil's hands jammed into his pockets.

_____

Phil manages to slip away for three hours in the morning before Dan wakes up to meet Riya for the first time at Maida Vale Station. She doesn't look like what Phil expected a realtor to look like, with her coral pink hair and nose ring. She had sounded like someone's mum when Phil had talked to her over the phone--hell she might still be someone's mum.

"I have two places that fit your specifications," she tells him as they start walking towards the first one. She walks so quickly that Phil finds himself taking long strides to keep up, half worried that she's going to slip on the ice in her high heels with the pace she's going. "Of course, I think with your budget and the cash offer, you could probably pick whatever and wherever you like the most. It's just a matter of narrowing down what you think you want."

"I'd like to stay on the lower end of my budget," Phil says.

"Of course, of course," Riya says, and somehow starts walking even faster.

The first house Riya takes him to is an elongated three bedroom house with two bedrooms on the first floor, the ensuite on the second, and the kitchen and lounge on the third. "It's because of the rooftop deck," Riya tells him as he peers into the unplugged fridge and taps his fingernails against the granite countertops. She leads him up one more flight of stairs, to the already-trampled snow on the roof.

Phil leans against the railing of the deck, looking at the rooftops around them. One of the neighbors has a small rooftop garden. Phil could imagine starting his own rooftop garden up here, a bit of patio furniture for whenever Dan started complaining about the last time he'd gone outside for fresh air. It'd be nice not having to run up and down an entire flight of stairs every time he had to pee, even nicer to not have to plan their filming times around construction being done in the downstairs flat.

It's not until they're halfway to the second house that Phil remembers: he's trying to move out alone.

_____

"We should do another day in the life of," Dan suggests. Dan's on hour two of his break, but they've both written a lot for the book today so Phil can't even motivate himself to work again, much less convince Dan that they should.

"Christmas edition?" he suggests.

"Festive," Dan agrees.

"Your channel or mine?"

Dan pauses and scrunches up his nose briefly. Phil's lips twitch into a smile on their own accord. "Yours," Dan decides, "Let me know when you think you're up to filming it."

_____

Phil can't remember what brought him to this page but it's nearly four in the morning and Dan's gone to bed nearly an hour ago if the lack of creaking hardwood is anything to go by. Phil has his headphones on, hand absently across his mouth, watching an eighteen year old Dan tackle a twenty-two year old Phil onto the floor of his old bedroom.

Phil never watches his old videos. He can't stand to look at his younger self in the early unpolished videos, all of the old behaviors he'd abandoned for being too unaware. Before the evolution of boundaries he drew more and more about himself, he'd been too raw with too much unfiltered material for the millions of people looking at his channel. He hadn't even watched most of the videos that he'd purged from his youtube account months ago, hitting private within seconds of listen to his past self speak and closing out of them as quickly as possible.

So he doesn't know why he's doing it now. Looking for something, maybe. The nostalgia cuts sharper than he'd expected.

The video reaches an end and autoplay lines up another video of Dan drawing something on his face. Phil doesn't move to stop the autoplay, just watches the screen and lets it happen.

_____

It would be easier to move out, Phil realises, if he weren't still so painfully in love with Dan.

Three years is a long time to be in limbo. Three years in his late twenties, when he could have slipped past the uncomfortable heteronormativity Dan's insisted they both wear, found someone who wanted to be with him without any baggage or stipulations. He deserved better--they both did.

It's just so hard to leave when he looks at Dan every day: the crinkle of his eyes when he smiles, the way he snorts and turns red when he laughs too hard--when Dan brings him chocolate from the shop or makes him a mug of tea without asking, the way he'll let Phil beat him on Mario Kart if Phil's had a bad day--it's just--

Sometimes he'll look at Dan and want to drag a commitment out of him, some reassurance that he doesn't carry the damn weight of this thing between them all on his own. That's he's not the only one who thinks about the nights when they'd curled up under the blankets together, whispering secrets into Dan's neck, fingers splayed over Dan's ribs.

But Dan is nothing if not uncertain about what he wants, sometimes paralyzed into inaction by his own brand of perfectionism, always looking to keep every option open. And Phil wouldn't be so surprised if Dan looked at him some days and didn't want the same thing at all.

_____

Riya texts him about another two viewings, this time in Southwark. He likes Borough Market and actually enjoys the Tate--unlike Dan who would cite Caravaggio as his favourite artist and insist that he only enjoyed modern art ironically--so he agrees for a last minute meeting on the Monday morning before he leaves with Dan to join his family for the holidays.

The first unit is in a highrise overlooking the Thames, the London Bridge just below and to the right in the spectacular view the wide window offers. It's a two bedroom flat with plenty of sunlight for the houseplants--though Phil can't help but to notice how asymmetrically the kitchen is designed, tiles askew in a way that couldn't be anything other than deliberate. Dan would have an aneurysm just looking at it.

The second has the feel of an industrial loft converted into a two level flat. The exposed piping runs along the ceiling of the kitchen, giving way to a spacious lounge with a high ceiling. Phil stands and peers up at the abstract looking chandelier hanging from the ceiling and the corrugated steel lining the kitchen island. Martyn would probably love this listing, but It didn't really fit either his or Dan's aesthetics. He couldn't imagine filming a video here.

"We'll find you something," Riya assures him as they head back towards the London Bridge station, "Maybe the right thing just hasn't come onto the market yet."

Everything in his life is just a metaphor for something else. Phil just smiles and says, "I trust you."

_____

"I bought tickets to Reading," Dan calls down the stairs from the office. Phil has his laptop balanced on the stove as he pours milk into his cereal, checking email, Twitter, and then Facebook. Someone he used to know from uni has posted photographs of their newborn on Facebook--someone else has just spent two weeks in Cancun. Phil closes the tab; whatever messages PJ sent him aren't worth opening Facebook in a proper browser.

"Are you okay with the times?" Dan asks, this time much closer as he opens the door to the kitchen. Phil just hands him his newly prepared bowl of cereal before picking up his laptop from the stove and checking his email for the itinerary Dan has just forwarded him.

Dan obliges him enough by taking his cereal into the lounge for him, but not enough to leave it untouched. "Seven AM train?" Phil asks, more amused than anything, "Is this because you bought them last minute? Are you sure you're going to wake up in time?"

"Maybe I just won't sleep," Dan counters around a mouthful of cereal.

"And be asleep for all of Christmas day?" Phil asks, "You can't sleep through the entire day. What about your family?"

Dan makes a grand sweeping gesture with the spoon. "Everything going according to plan."

Phil plucks the spoon out of his hand. "You can sleep on the train."

_____

The train ride is only half an hour but Dan still manages to fall asleep. At some point, his head falls on Phil's shoulder because of course it would. Phil keeps his Stephen King book open and tries to stay as still as possible when flipping the pages.

Not that he'd read more than a paragraph since Dan started leaning against him. Phil spends the train ride looking down at Dan, the dark curve of his eyelashes against his cheek. He remembers cupping Dan's face in his hands, pressing their foreheads together in some long distant past, not too scared to say _I love you_.

He liked the three level house near Paddington and he could cook in an asymmetric kitchen with a beautiful view if he needed to. He hasn't made any offers and it's not because of the flat.

Phil gently brushes Dan's hair away from his forehead. He's stood still for long enough but closure still feels like a long ways away.

_____

Dan's parents aren't even awake by the time that they arrive ("Oops," Dan says blearily as he peers down at the time on his phone, "I might have forgotten to tell them what time we were arriving.") and it's still too early to check into their hotel, so they mill around Reading Station. All of the stores are closed, including the Costa in the corner otherwise Phil would have ordered a coffee. He peers through the metal bars into the darkened shop longingly.

Someone screams on the other side of the terminal. Phil turns, adrenaline spiking--was the terminal collapsing in on them? A serial killer who'd decided that Christmas morning was the perfect day to rampage through Reading Station?

But there's just a teenaged girl who looks stricken with her hand to her mouth, staring at the two of them. He looks at Dan who's already got on his polite smile, friendly despite the circles under his eyes.

"I'm so sorry," she says as she approaches them, "I didn't mean to scream. I swear I'm not crazy."

"Hello," Phil says, smiling, "We don't think you're crazy."

"I love you guys," she says all in a rush, "I've been watching you since I was twelve. I can't believe I'm seeing you in person. What are you doing in Reading?"

"Visiting family," Dan says without missing a beat, "Would you like a picture?"

"Yes! Please!" she says, all too eager for the swift change in topic. She pulls out her phone and Phil leans into frame. Her hands are trembling too hard and she fumbles with her phone. "Sorry," she says, "Sorry, sorry."

Phil takes the phone out of her hands and stills it for a nice shot. He takes three pictures in a row and hands it back to her.

"Thank you," she says, clutching her phone to her chest, "Your videos mean the world to me. Thank you so much."

Phil smiles and waves as she walks backwards a few paces before hurrying away. The polite smile has slipped off Dan's face again and he sweeps his fingers along his fringe a few times, self-consciously.

"Nice girl," Phil says, checking his phone again out of compulsion. It was past nine--maybe Dan's parents were finally awake?

"I didn't expect to get accosted at a train station," Dan says, "How long do you think until she tweets that she saw both of us here?"

"It's probably already up," Phil says. His twitter notification has sat at 999+ for the last week because he hasn't been checking.

Dan looks down at his phone, probably to check Twitter.

"Does it bother you?" Phil asks, on a whim.

"Does what bother me?"

"Me coming to Christmas with you and your family. Being seen in the train station."

Dan doesn't say anything, just keeps his eyes on his phone. Phil supposes that's an answer all by itself.

_____

"Don't work on Christmas," Phil says, reaching over Dan's shoulder from where he's flopped face down on the hotel room bed to close Dan's laptop. They've both had too much ham and Phil can't decide if he wants to explode from too much food or sink into a food coma. Dan's rewatching some of the footage that Phil had taken earlier in the day, already hunched over in editing mode.

"I'm not going to be able to sleep," Dan says setting aside the laptop, "I shouldn't have had that coffee." He tilts his head back against the bed, arching his back in a stretch. Maybe it's the cinnamon mulled wine that Dan's mum kept refilling Phil's cup with, or maybe it's because Phil feels warm from spending the afternoon watching Adrian kick Dan's ass in League of Legends while cheery Christmas music in the background--Phil pets the back of Dan's head like a cat. Dan tilts his head back even more, legs stretching out in front of him in the cramped space between bed and television. Phil takes it as invitation to push his fingers through Dan's hair, scratching lightly. Dan hums and picks up Phil's 3DS from where it had slid off the bed.

"Ah yes," Dan says as he turns it on, "Time to spend time with my true friends on Christmas. I hope Isabelle took the day off."

"Farm me some beetles," Phil orders, not moving his fingers from Dan's hair.

"Is the island open on Christmas? Does Animal Crossing condone insect genocide on Christmas?"

"You don't kill the beetles," Phil argues, half muffled by the duvet, "You just collect them and sell to Reese."

"Where do they go?" Dan muses, "What does she do with all of those golden stags?" The tinkling of the Christmas music starts up and Phil feels his eyes sliding shut.

"Phil, your house is a complete mess," Dan informs him. The back of Dan's neck is warm and Phil lets his hand rest there. "I can't believe you actually keep the gyroids."

"They're cute," Phil protests, weakly.

"Ugh, no," Dan says, "Delete, delete, delete."

Phil hopes that Dan hasn't actually deleted his collection of gyroids. Dan leans into his hand and the Animal Crossing music is so soothing that Phil finds himself drifting off.

He wakes up drowsily when Dan moves from his cramped position at the foot of Phil's bed to prod Phil into getting under the sheets. Phil hasn't brushed his teeth or even changed into his pyjamas but it's not the first time he's been so exhausted he's slept in his jeans without complaint.

For a drowsy moment, Dan hovers over him when he's finished tucking him in. Phil can't tell if he dreams the fingertips brushing hair from his forehead, the quiet, "Merry Christmas Phil. I'm glad you're still here with me."

 _Stay here,_ Phil thinks about saying, but the currents of sleep have already swept him away.

_____

The next time Phil turns on his Animal Crossing game, he finds that his entire collection of gyroids has been rearranged into neat rows, sorted by color and size. The rest of his house has been surprisingly untouched--Dan hadn't even cleared the foyer of the random tissue boxes and miscellaneous useless statues. Phil tries not to read too much into it.

_____

Mid-January, they meet up for lunch at Mildreds in Soho because Dan's on a vegetarian kick again. Phil comes straight from where he'd met up with Riya to see another three flats up past Camden and he's still trying to decide whether proximity to Camden Market was a pro or con when Dan looks up from his menu and says, "Can I come with you next time?"

It's not like Phil's gone to great lengths to hide what he was doing, but the panic still sets in. "What?"

"When you go talk to Riya or whatever her name is," Dan says. His voice is nonchalant but he's gripping the edge of his menu rather tightly. Phil wonders how long he'd been psyching himself up for this confrontation. "I mean, I know you're looking for place for yourself and my opinion doesn't matter but I'd still like to come. If you're okay with that. It's fine if you don't want me to. I probably wouldn't want me to. Never mind, forget I asked."

Phil sets the menu down. Dan stares down at his with a single-minded intensity, jaw set. "Dan," he says quietly.

"Forget it," Dan insists.

"I'm not going to forget it," Phil says.

Dan sighs but lifts his head to look at Phil. He's carefully schooling his face to look bored of the entire conversation but Phil can read him better than that. Dan looks terrified. Sometimes Phil forgets how much younger Dan is.

"Are you okay with the idea of me moving out?" Phil asks.

"I think you should do whatever you think is best for you," Dan says, too fast to be anything other than a practiced answer. It's not a no but it's not a yes either. But the way he says it, staring back down at the menu and refusing to look at Phil--everything about his hunched shoulders and shuttered expression says no.

Phil look around the cramped restaurant. The couple to his right are speaking German, the girl to his left is engrossed in a book. The waiter still hasn't been by with their water, much less their appetizer. This isn't the place to have a private conversation. Maybe that's why Dan picked it.

Part of Phil is relieved that Dan knows. Part of him is thrilled that Dan seems to understand. And yet, there's still the traitorous part of him that wants Dan to put up more of a fight, wants this conversation out in the open, wants them to claw at each other until the old wounds are reopened, reset the broken bones so that they can heal better and move forward from this silent standstill.

"Okay," Phil says, because what choice did he have, really? "I'll let you know next time Riya schedules something."

_____

The complete first draft of their book is due by the start of February. Phil starts spending his life in his pyjamas and on photoshop, only pulling on jeans and a sweatshirt to run out to Tesco to pick up coffee and fresh oranges since they've mostly deteriorated into a diet of pizza and microwaveable vegetables.

The night before everything is due, he puts his head down on the dining room table, intending only to rest his eyes for a moment while Dan arranged and rearranged the contents of Phil's drawer to whatever exact specifications only existed in his brain. He doesn't see Dan take the picture, nor is he awake for the thirty minutes Dan spends adjusting the colors on photoshop, but he does wake up when Dan yells, "We're done!" with only six hours left before their deadline.

He smiles sleepily up at Dan, only half registering Dan's outstretched arms and the delighted grin on his face.

"Phil we're done," Dan tells him again as if Phil hadn't heard him the first time. He ruffles a hand through Phil's hair as he moves towards the door of the lounge. "I think this calls for celebratory cereal."

It's nearly three in the morning and Phil wants nothing more than to crawl into bed. But he gets to his feet and follows Dan into the kitchen because life's too short not to share in Dan's happiness.

_____

When both he and Dan show up at his next meeting with Riya, she doesn't look even remotely surprised. Dan smiles when he introduces himself, but doesn't look happy. He's perfectly polite though, friendly without the enthusiasm. He'd asked to come along, after all.

"Just the one today," Riya says while they're waiting for the coffee Phil had suggested they stop for--Dan was lagging a little because of the early hour. "Sorry about the short notice," Riya continues, "It just came on the market this week and I wanted to make sure you had the chance to consider it before someone else snapped it up." She hands him a copy of the listing. The place looks modern, with low hanging lights over the kitchen island and sleek looking square furniture in all black. Dan looks at the listing over his arm but doesn't say anything.

"Nearly 170 square meters in this three bedroom," Riya says, "Lots of sun, I know you mentioned that as being important, Phil."

Phil nods, too distracted by trying to figure out the carefully neutral expression on Dan's face to be paying full attention. The two cups of coffee come but neither of them notice until Riya says, "Are we ready to go, guys?"

_____

The cabinets are darker than they looked in the pictures. The kitchen counters are also black granite. Phil fiddles with the sleek kitchen faucet and waits for Dan to say something about the decor the previous owners had chosen--but instead Dan just follows Phil around the place, hands jammed uncomfortably into the pockets of his skinny jeans and doesn't say a single word. If Riya senses the tension, she doesn't say anything. Phil jokes about how the big fridge won't be good for his shapely figure and laughs at the floor to ceiling mirror that serves as the master bedroom closet door.

Near the end of the tour, Riya turns to Dan and says, "What do you think?"

Dan laughs nervously, pulling his hands out of his pockets and holding them up. "I'm not moving in."

Riya just smiles politely. "Not a big fan?"

"I don't think the place suits Phil," Dan says, "The kitchen is too dark and there's not enough weird quirks. There's too many edges."

Phil hadn't even thought of it in that way but it was a perfect assessment of the place.

"It's quite big though," Dan says, "I could see Phil growing into a place of this size." His voice is lacking the usual bite--apparently in all sincerity. Phil's chest clenches and he struggles to keep his expression neutral for Riya. He wants to pull Dan aside and ask what exactly it was that he was getting at--why he always said these things in public when he knew Phil couldn't respond.

"Size is good," Riya says, shutting the door after them, "Noted."

_____

"You didn't have to come," Phil says when they're both standing on the platform at Clapham Common, waiting for the train to take them home.

"You didn't have to let me come," Dan says, turning away from him to look for the train.

"This isn't about me," Phil says, voice low, "Dan, why did you even want to come?"

"Why do you want to move out?" Dan asks, whipping around to look Phil in the eye.

"I--" Phil starts and stops. He looks around but the platform is nearly empty. He swallows and tries to keep his voice calm. "I'm almost thirty Dan, I haven't even been _trying_ to date the last three years and I just need some space--"

"I haven't dated anyone in the last three years," Dan says, as if that's somehow an argument of any sort at all.

"I can't do this forever," Phil says, "I didn't want you to find out by coming to a flat viewing with me--but I didn't know how to say no. I wanted to have a conversation about it--"

"We're having that conversation now, aren't we?"

"I never know how to say no to you Dan," Phil says, voice getting louder than he'd like. He takes a deep breath, looks around at the platform, and runs a hand through his hair. His voice drops again. "Maybe it's time for me to learn."

"You say no to me loads," Dan says.

"I didn't say no to you when we met," Phil says, "Even though I had a feeling it was a bad idea. I didn't say no to you when you said we should just be friends. I never said no to you every time we signed the renewal on our lease. Dan I--" _\--loved you too much, too soon--_ "--can't keep doing this."

There's the high thin whisper of metal on metal as the train approaches the station. "I care about you more than I'd like to admit," Phil says, looking ahead at the wall on the other side of the tracks, "I care so much about us. But sometimes I feel like this thing between us--whatever it is--is kind of killing me." Half his words get drowned out in the thunder of the arriving train. He doesn't know how much Dan has heard.

_____

"Don't move out," Dan says when they're walking from the underground station back to their flat.

Phil laughs.

"Don't move out," Dan repeats, grabbing Phil's arm and stopping them on the frozen pavement.

"I don't want to," Phil says, "But I have to."

Dan's grip on his arm tightens. "Phil, listen," he says quietly, "I fucked up. I fucked up so many times, okay? I keep fucking up. I'm sure I'm going to fuck up more. I'm trying not to fuck this one up. You can't move out. I would literally die without you. Shut up. I'm not being dramatic. I don't care how stupid I sound." He steps closer, his eyes searching Phil's face. "Phil you have to understand, every fucking day I wish I could have taken that one month back. I miss you." Dan swallows, eyes wide. Phil can feel how hard he's shaking from the hand still clenched around his arm. "I miss you and you're standing in front of me. I fucked up Phil, I know."

"You're not going to lose me," Phil says. He's exhausted by all the work it takes to be wary of Dan. "We're still going to be best friends. You don't have to say these things to keep me."

"I've been in love with you since that day I saw you at Manchester Station. I've been in love with you for the last six years of my life. I've been in love with you even when I didn't want to admit it to myself. Phil please--" Dan squeezes his eyes shut and takes a half step back though he doesn't let go of Phil's arm. "--please tell me I'm not the only one."

"You're the most frustrating human being I've ever met," Phil says, grabbing Dan's wrist when he lets go of Phil's arm. His voice gets quieter. "But ever since we met, there's been everyone else--and then there's you."

Dan opens his eyes. Phil slides his hand from Dan's wrist to intertwine their fingers.

"Marry me," Dan says.

"What?" Phil says, half laughing.

"Marry me," Dan repeats, this time smiling.

"Already?"

"I'll buy you a house with a garden," Dan says, "We can get a dog. You can get all the hamsters you want."

"You don't need to bribe me," Phil says.

"Can I kiss you?" Dan asks.

"We're in the middle of the street," Phil says.

"Can I kiss you?" Dan repeats, stepping closer.

Phil cups Dan's cheek, smoothing his thumb along Dan's cheekbone. Dan leans into his touch, looking at Phil with his eyebrows drawn, as if he's expecting to be pushed away at any moment.

Phil leans forward and kisses him.

_____

In late February, they have to go to Random House to pick out paper for their book before dropping by the film warehouse to check the progress on the set design that the builders have been working on. Phil brings along one of the cameras so that he can get footage for the behind the scenes video they'd started back in November for the tour DVD.

"DVD bonus content! Oh yeah!" Dan says with an exaggerated grin on the tube when Phil points the camera at him to check if it's working. Phil clicks through the gallery to find the new footage and Dan leans over his arm, swaying with the movement of the train.

"Ew, no, delete that," Dan says, prodding at the buttons on the back of the camera.

Phil pulls the camera away. It's not the most flattering angle but it still makes Phil smile. "I think you look fine."

"You have no objective opinions about me," Dan points out.

"Wow," Phil says, "Narcissistic but also probably true."

"Delete," Dan insists, and Phil finally obliges.

Then, twenty minutes into touching probably fifteen different types of paper, one of the editors drops by their conference room to say, "Dan, I'm glad to see you happier since the last time we met," before smiling and giving him a thumbs up and disappearing again.

"Uh," Dan says, exchanging a look with Ralph the paper connoisseur who's holding out two sheets of matte paper that are supposedly different. "Anyway."

But when Ralph leaves to get more printed examples of the semi-gloss pages, Dan looks over at Phil and mouths the words _marry me,_ smiling all the while. Phil shakes his head, grinning, and has a hard time trying to look serious again when Ralph comes back with another two cookbooks and a photography guide.

Later, they're waiting for a taxi to take them away from the warehouse where their set is nearly half finished. Dan's got sawdust in his hair and light from the setting sun casts half his face in shadow. "I didn't expect the piece over the microwave to be so humongous but I like it," he says, glancing over at Phil. The sun highlights the gold in his irises, and Phil feels like he could burst with how much affection he has for Dan in that moment. He doesn't have to push it down, call it something else. He doesn't have to be scared that Dan doesn't feel the same way.

"You okay?" Dan asks, touching his hand.

Phil only curls his pinky finger around Dan's because he can see the taxi rounding the corner. "Yeah," he says, "More than okay."

_____

The day after they film the book trailer, they have to meet with Martyn to talk about the merchandise coming with them on tour. Cornelia shows up halfway through the first round of drinks, when they've got itineraries spread across the restaurant table and Phil's rethinking the whole business dinner thing because where are the waiters going to put the food?

"Good to see you again," Cornelia tells Dan, and smiles at Phil.

"Thanks for introducing me to Riya," Phil says to Cornelia, "She's been such a huge help."

"Oh!" Cornelia says, glancing briefly at Dan before smiling again, "She's very lovely. I'm glad to hear it."

"Are you actually looking to buy then?" Martyn asks, looking up from his inventory lists.

"There's a house over in Kensal Green that we liked," Phil says, "It's a bit pricey though."

"I personally think we should just pool our money together and buy one sixth of a castle," Dan says, setting his beer back down, "Or Downton Abbey."

"Unfortunately, neither of those are for sale," Phil says, "And even if they were, they would be so far out of our price range. So most likely we're going to keep looking."

"Mum's going to be sad you won't be going back to Manchester," Martyn says.

"Maybe we can save for a flat in Manchester next," Dan says without missing a beat.

Phil looks at him, trying not to smile.

"I mean, you don't even have a room any more. Your mum chose watercolor over you."

Phil shoves at him but he's grinning.

"Okay, I got these lists sorted out," Martyn says, pushing the papers across the table to where they're sitting.

They bend their heads over the list. Under the table, Phil finds Dan's hand and takes it in his. The corner of Dan's mouth lifts in response: a private smile.

Phil can't help but to beam back.


End file.
